


Hurricane Drunk

by Traincat



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-29
Updated: 2011-04-29
Packaged: 2017-10-18 18:57:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Traincat/pseuds/Traincat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“We need a do over,” Wally declares, legs hanging out the passenger window of a red Chevrolet. Roy casts a discerning eye around the deserted WalMart parking lot.</i></p><p>(In which Roy turns 21, and crime, TFLN and something like a revelation ensue.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hurricane Drunk

**Author's Note:**

> From the Young Justice anon meme, for the prompt: _1\. Roy is the oldest.  
>  2\. He's 21 first.  
> 3\. He gets alcohol for KF and Robin.  
> 4\. ???  
> 5\. ???  
> 6\. Profit! _
> 
> _I'd sort of like drunk slashy-shippiness with some age-consent-wrong going on, but really I just want KF, Robin, and ~~Speedy Red Arrow Speedy~~ ROY drinking together._
> 
> For [lautre_m](http://lautre-m.livejournal.com/profile). ♥
> 
> Now with 50% fewer stupid typos! /thumbs up

It’s Roy’s own damn fault for not listening in the first place. They sneak it past him just after his seventeenth birthday, while he’s fixing an arrow.

(“It’s not really babysitting,” Ollie reasons. “It’s like a teamup!”

“It’s a _play date_ ,” Roy grinds out. Ollie doesn’t even have the good graces to look sheepish.

“Roy, you’re almost an adult now, and you should trust me when I tell you it’s a team up,” he says, clapping Roy on the shoulder. “Now, there’s money on the fridge for pizza, board games in the closet, and you have the League’s number if you need anything.”)

“So you’re seventeen now, right?” Kid Flash says, coming up behind him. Roy shrugs; he’s only half paying attention. The fuse on this arrow isn’t quite right, and if he doesn’t fix it there’s a chance it’s going to blow up in his face instead of the target’s.

“Yeah,” he says. Robin joins Kid Flash, leaning over his other shoulder. His chin rests on Roy’s shoulder, and it’s ridiculously pointy.

“No fair,” he whines.

“Excuse me for being born first,” Roy grumbles. He squints, turning the arrow this way and that, trying to find the loose connection. Maybe one day Ollie will learn how to make his wiring less of a complete mess.

“So you can get into R-rated movies now?” Robin asks. Roy huffs.

“I could get into them before,” he says. “You guys can’t because you’re miniature.”

It’s not entirely fair; Kid Flash isn’t any smaller than Roy had been at fourteen, though there’s no denying that Robin’s pretty tiny for twelve.

“And you can buy porn!” Kid Flash exclaims. Roy snorts. “Hey, you could buy us –”

“No,” Roy says automatically. Kid Flash pouts.

“C’mon!” he says, throwing his arms around Roy’s neck. Roy hunches forward, dragging Kid Flash with him, as he bends over the arrow. “Please?”

“Not going to happen,” Roy says. Kid Flash is quiet for a moment. He plants his chin on Roy’s shoulder.

“What if –”

“ _No_ ,” Roy says. Kid Flash huffs.

“Hey,” Robin says after a moment. He sits down next to Roy and looks pointedly at the arrow. “If you –”

Roy sees it before he even finishes the sentence.

“Yeah,” he says, squinting. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Robin grins.

Roy misses the look Kid Flash and Robin trade behind his back. Otherwise he might’ve been on his guard; as it stands, he’s fairly relaxed. The problem’s located and it’s relatively simple to fix, now that he sees it. He bites down on the tip of his tongue as he works.

“So, hey,” Robin says, sidling up next to Roy. He leans forward intently.

“You’ll be twenty-one before us, right?” Kid Flash continues, sitting down on Roy’s other side. “I mean, obviously.”

“Yeah,” Roy says, distantly. He’s only half-listening.

“So you’ll be able to drink,” Robin says.

“And buy booze,” Kid Flash adds helpfully.

“Sure,” Roy says. He leans forward a little more – he’s almost, _almost_ got it. He just needs another minute. And better tweezers. He narrows his eyes.

“So theoretically,” Kid Flash says.

“You could buy _us_ booze,” Robin finishes.

“Mmhmm,” Roy hums, distracted, grinning as he _finally_ gets the arrow in working order again. He sets it down, proud, and then their words set in. He freezes. Kid Flash and Robin lean over him to highfive each other.

“Wait,” Roy says. “What?”

\--

Ollie takes him out to a bar for his twenty-first birthday, to “teach him how to drink.” Roy doesn’t let on that Dinah’s been giving him lessons in drinking people under the table since his nineteenth birthday.

(“Because if you’re old enough to join the army or go out in a costume and take down supervillains, you’re old enough to drink. Besides, that idiot’s going to try and make you pass out when you turn twenty-one,” she says, filling up a shot glass. “And you’re not to going to give him the satisfaction.”

It’s the best birthday present anyone’s ever gotten him.)

He comes home the next night after patrol and finds teenagers in his apartment.

Kid Flash and Robin, to be exact. Or, actually, Wally and Dick, seeing as how they’re not wearing costumes.

“Happy birthday!” Wally exclaims, throwing a handful of confetti in the air. Dick inclines his head, his sunglasses slipping forward; his blue eyes glimmer in a way that can only mean trouble.

“Get out,” Roy says flatly. He’s tired and his shoulder aches from where he got slammed into a wall. The only plan he had for the evening was to collapse on the couch – the couch Wally and Dick are sprawled out on –, order a pizza and watch TV.

“What, not even a hello?” Dick says, frowning.

“Not cool,” Wally says. Roy leans down to shove his feet off his already dismal coffee table. “C’mon, dude! We came to celebrate with you!”

They both stare at him, eyes ridiculously wide, curled up on his couch like a pair of overgrown kittens. Roy feels his will start to slip.

“You’re just here for booze,” he accuses halfheartedly, flopping down in between them. They lean around him to exchange a look.

“Not _just_ for the booze,” Wally says. Dick nods. “For you _and_ booze.”

Roy groans, tipping his head back. He contemplates the ceiling, and his life, and what the fuck he is going to do with two teenagers in his apartment demanding alcohol. Everything sucks.

“You promised,” Dick says, frowning at him.

“You tricked me,” Roy points out, but that doesn’t change the facts. He did promise. Sort of. He indicated a vague agreement and he’s been held to it for four years. In the superhero community, it’s pretty much the same thing. He hauls himself forward, elbows on his knees, and huffs.

Wally and Dick don’t even bother to hide their grins. Roy glowers at them; it doesn’t do anything. Not that he expected it to, because honestly that look hasn’t worked on either of them for years.

\--

The first time is a disaster. Roy wakes up and instantly becomes aware of three things: he has a massive hangover, there is an empty bottle digging into his lower back, and Dick is half on top of him. He raises himself up on his elbows, unceremoniously shoving Dick to the side, and surveys his living room with dismay.

For one, his couch is nowhere near where it had been at the start of the night. For another, Wally’s not in the room.

Dick groans. Roy shifts to look at him, wincing, and finds that he’s lying prone on his back with one hand over his eyes.

“It’s a little late for that,” Roy says. “I think those’re your sunglasses hanging on my ceiling fan.”

“Urgh,” Dick says. “My head.”

“Don’t hurl on me,” Roy tells him. Dick groans again. “I mean it.”

From the corner, Roy’s cell phone goes off. He eyes it with scorn.

“Whoever it is can just fuck off,” he says. He’s not getting up for anything short of an invasion – and not a little one, either. One of those dramatic ones where Superman gives an inspiring speech about trust and teamwork and, that one time, something about cardboard.

Something vibrates against his leg; Roy quirks an eyebrow.

“Wait, hold on,” Dick mumbles. He worms a hand between them and extracts his cell phone. He peers through the gaps in his fingers at the screen, and his expression shifts from exasperation to confusion.

“What?” Roy asks.

“Well, aside from the ten messages from home…” Dick says. He holds out his phone. Roy takes it and squints at the screen.

There’s a text from Wally. It reads: _This is a mass text. Does anyone know where I am?_

“Huh,” he says.

\--

“We need a do over,” Wally declares, legs hanging out the passenger window of a red Chevrolet. Roy casts a discerning eye around the deserted WalMart parking lot.

“How’d you even get here?” he asks, and Wally shrugs.

“And whose car is that?” Dick says.

\--

“We have to lay down some ground rules,” Roy says on the eve of the second time.

“The first rule of Roy Gets Us Drunk Night,” Dick intones. “Don’t talk about Roy Gets Us Drunk Night.”

Roy stares at him flatly.

“There is no way Batman let you watch that movie,” he says. Dick scowls.

“Batman doesn’t run my life,” he says, and Roy and Wally sneak a glance at each other before they start snickering. Dick gives them both his best Bat-glare. “He doesn’t, I –”

“Oh, dude, give it up,” Wally says, rolling his eyes. To Roy, he says, “He watched it at my place.”

“Hey!” Dick says, pouting, and Roy shakes his head and rolls his eyes.

“Okay, seriously,” he says. “We need rules, because I am not travelling through half the state trying to fetch Wally before lunchtime again.”

\--

The rules go up on the fridge, stuck there with a magnet shaped like an arrow that Roy assumes Ollie left at some point. (Ollie has a habit of sneaking in and leaving Roy things, like somehow he thinks Roy’s life will be much improved if only he were in possession of arrow-shaped magnets, or a throw rug in a particularly terrible shade of green, or, on one mystifying occasion, a singing fish.

Alternatively, he’s trying to use Roy’s apartment for storage.)

The list reads, underlined and in red where it needs to be:

 _1\. First rule of Roy Gets Us Drunk Night – don’t talk about Roy Gets Us Drunk Night_ (Dick won’t stop nagging until he writes it down, and it does basically sum it up.)  
 _1a. This means your teammates. Yes, all of them.  
1b. And your mentors.  
1c. And if you say a single word to Green Arrow, I_ will _hunt you down._

 _2\. Roy is the unquestioned bartender and king of Roy Gets Us Drunk Night, and when he says stop drinking, he means it._

 _3\. Leave the lampshades alone. This means you, Wally._

\--

“What if they’re not your lampshades?” Wally asks, halfway through the night. Roy, reluctant to take his eyes off of Dick (he might try and climb something, like the fridge. Or Roy.), takes a moment to respond.

“What?”

“What if they were other people’s lampshades?” Wally asks. He’s got a dangerous glimmer in his eyes.

“Whatever you’re thinking,” Roy says, and Wally’s gone before he can even say, “stop it.” His door slams shut, the hinges creaking. Dick giggles, throwing himself down next to Roy. He wiggles his fingers in Roy’s face; Roy bats his hands away.

“You’re a weird drunk,” he says.

“Am not,” Dick replies.

“Are so,” Roy replies. He puts his feet up on the coffee table. Wally will probably be back with the lampshades in no time, and then Roy will have to make a hard decision: which is will ultimately cause him more pain – making Wally return his new lampshade collection, or listening to him drunkenly babble about how awesome it is?

\--

Somehow, Roy ends up with a lap full of Robin. Dick sprawls out over him, sunglasses hanging off one ear, and an empty bottle of wine in his hand. Roy slips his hands underneath his back and his knees, trying to haul him into some semblance of uprightness, but Dick only squirms away, slippery like an eel, until he’s lying half off the sofa with one foot dangerously close to kicking Roy in the jaw.

“You’re not having fun,” Dick accuses. Roy grimaces – one of the empty bottles is digging into his back. How it had ended up there, he doesn’t want to know, but he’s pretty sure Wally was involved.

Roy wraps his hands around Dick’s wrists and pulls until Dick is seated mostly upright, straddling his thighs. “Up we go,” he grunts.

“Why aren’t you having fun?” Dick asks. He braces his hands on Roy’s shoulders, staring at him intensely. He has the bluest eyes Roy’s ever seen.

“I’m already running the risk of your giant flying rodent of a mentor skinning me alive,” Roy says. “I’m staying mostly sober, thanks.”

Dick narrows his eyes, and it’s clear he’s taken Roy’s words as a challenge.

\--

“Dude.”

Roy blinks once, twice, and realizes he’s lying on his living room floor again. He feels just slightly nauseous and there’s something warm curled up against him. He looks down and realizes it’s Dick. He’s drooling on his shoulder; Roy doesn’t mind as much as he probably should.

There’s a flash of a light and a clicking sound. Roy looks up fast enough to make his head spin. Wally is standing there, grinning, cell phone held out. He seems pretty sober, in spite of the lampshade on his head. It’s shaped like the Eiffel Tower – Roy doesn’t even want to know where he got it.

“No, no,” Wally says. “Don’t move. I want to preserve this moment for all time. You two are so _precious_.”

“Give me the phone, Wally,” Roy growls, extending a hand. “Let’s all take a moment to remember who controls your alcoholic future.”

Wally takes a minute to weigh the threat.

“Nah,” he says at last. “I’ve got blackmail now. I’m sure Batman would be _very_ interested in just how cozy –”

A batarang knocks the phone out of his hands.

“Dude!” Wally exclaims. Dick grumbles, pressing his face against Roy’s chest.

“Wally,” he mumbles. “Shut up.”

Wally looks at Dick (who is trying to become one with Roy’s shirt) over to his phone (which is smoking and pinned to the wall) and back again. He raises his eyebrows.

“He’s a mean drunk,” he says. Roy has to agree with the sentiment.

\--

 _(740) i cant believe u drunk ninjad my phone  
(201) You got a new one, obvsly, so what’s the problem.  
(740) revenge will be mine  
Replies (7) Good Night: 102 Bad Night: 353_

Roy stares at the screen, feeling the twitch in his eyebrow, the one he gets when Ollie’s doing something particularly stupid (the time with the bears springs to mind), start up again.

He slams the laptop shut with a little more force than strictly necessary and stalks over to the fridge.

The next time Wally and Dick show up unannounced, they find **NO TEXTS FROM LAST NIGHT!** scrawled in big letters at the bottom of the rules list.

\--

Somehow, it becomes a thing. Roy doesn’t mean for it to happen, but that doesn’t stop the fact that he finds himself frequenting the liquor store more often than he would otherwise. He scans the shelves, looking for offbeat things that Wally will like, idly thinking of simple cocktail recipes for Dick.

(“It’s completely aster,” Dick says, flapping a hand in Roy’s direction. “It’s just like chemistry. No worries.”

“Anything blows up, you’re paying for it,” Roy replies. “And you’d better drink that, because I’m sure as hell not.”

“Is that ketchup?” Wally says, leaning over Dick’s shoulder. “Yuck. Ten bucks if you chug it.”)

The thing is, there’s not much else holding them together this way. It’s not just about him – it’s about Dick and Wally, too, has been since their junior team disbanded nearly a year ago. It’s not easy anymore, not like when they were kids and they didn’t need to work to stay in touch, to stay together. Dick will try to deny it, being sixteen and disturbingly optimistic for someone raised by Batman, but Roy thinks Wally knows the truth.

He grabs a bottle of something that looks disgusting and sounds even worse – what kind of a name is ChocoVine? Dick will probably love it – off the shelf and ambles over to the counter. There’s a bag of tiny, brightly colored paper umbrellas hanging by the checkout, next to packs of plastic martini glasses, and Roy’s will wavers for a minute.

 _“You know what we need?”_ Dick had said the time before last, soft and hazy in Roy’s memory. _“Some of those tiny umbrellas! Like the kind B gets in his drinks on cruises.”_

“That’ll be all?” the clerk asks after Roy flashes his ID. Roy hesitates a split second, then grabs the bag of umbrellas and slaps it down on the counter. The clerk raises an eyebrow, and Roy scowls, well aware of how ridiculous he looks, newly twenty-one and in a motorcycle jacket with a packet of tiny floral umbrellas in his hand.

“That’ll be all,” he replies.

It’s not so bad, he thinks to himself in the parking lot as he heads to his bike. A few broken laws and a list of rules taped to his fridge – people have been held together by less.

\--

There is a tiny umbrella in the mouth of Wally’s beer.

(Roy always buys bottles, not cans, because Dinah told him once, very seriously, that she would kick his ass six ways to Sunday if she ever caught him with beer that came out of a can, and he believes her.)

“You’re right,” Wally says to Dick, staring thoughtfully into the bottle. “It tastes _way_ better with the umbrella.”

“Told you,” Dick replies. He’s looking at Roy with a strange expression – sharp and a little analytical with something warm underneath. He says, “You got these for me?”

There’s a rush of motion and in a blink Wally has moved from one side of the room to the other. There’s a paper umbrella tucked behind Dick’s ear. Dick scowls, crossing his arms.

“Mature, Wally,” he says. The only reply he gets is snickers.

It’s impulse more than anything, that Roy reaches out and plucks the umbrella from Dick’s hair. He twirls it between his fingers for a minute before placing it in Dick’s outstretched palm.

“Yeah, well,” he says. “It’s your own fault for getting the image of Batman holding a fruity drink stuck in my head.”

“Scarred forever,” Wally says solemnly. He and Roy clink bottles at Dick’s spectacularly unimpressed expression.

\--

He’s not as surprised as he should be when he comes home early one evening – his plan had been to get his gear and head out on patrol – to find Dick and Wally seated at his kitchen. It’s become enough of a regular occurrence that he doesn’t even blink, let alone ask how they got in.

What is surprising is the icepack Dick has pressed to Wally’s face. (For one, Roy hadn’t even known he’d had ice.)

“What happened?” he asks, dropping his stuff. He circles the table, trying to tilt Wally’s chin up towards the light. Wally shrugs him off.

“It’s fine,” he says. “C’mon, stop it, it’s not that bad.”

“He got in a fight,” Dick says, looking tense and unhappy. Roy knows how he feels – it's different with them. They're used to finding each other covered in scrapes and bruises, war wounds from a previous night’s patrol.

Wally has powers. He can run the length of Roy’s neighborhood in no time flat. He’s not supposed to get hurt.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Roy says. There’s a bruise beneath Wally’s left eye, dark purple tinged green. It’s nasty, but it looks like it was a hell of a lot worse before. It’s already started healing. Wally grabs the ice pack from Dick and presses it against his face.

“It’s _fine_ ,” he says. “Seriously, guys, stop it. I got in one fight. It happens!”

“Not when you have superspeed,” Roy says, crossing his arms. Wally narrows his good eye at him.

“Secret identities, dude,” he says. “Sacrifices have to be made.”

“You’re not doing that right,” Dick says, leaning forward and adjusting Wally’s icepack. Wally snorts.

“Okay, okay, stop fussing,” he says. “Look, it’ll be gone by the end of the night. Just leave it, alright?”

Roy throws himself down in the one remaining chair. Whatever semblance of a decent mood he had is gone, straight out the window. It’s always the little things, a sprained ankle or a black eye, that remind him that his powered friends can be just as vulnerable as the rest of them. That they’re all vulnerable, really.

It’s a sobering thought. There’s really only one thing to do about sobering thoughts.

“Wanna get drunk?” he asks Wally.

“ _Totally_ ,” Wally breathes. “Oh, we sort of had an idea.”

Dick pulls out a bag and dangles it in front of Roy. His smile is knife-thin and just a little hopeful. Roy takes the bag and looks inside: it’s filled with Jell-O. He raises an eyebrow.

“Alright,” he says, dragging himself up. “Why the hell not.”

Later, as he’s shoving the Jell-O in the fridge (he doesn’t have enough shot glasses for this to work, so Dick produces some out of that magic backpack of his. Roy really doesn’t want to think about the possibility that they’re stolen Batglasses), he turns and narrows his eyes at both of them.

“So, you got punched in the face, and the first thing you thought of was _hey, let’s go get drunk with Roy_?”

“Actually, the first thing I thought was ‘ow’,” Wally points out. The bruise is already looking better. “The second thing I thought was, you know what would make this better? Jell-O, booze, Roy.”

“Winning combo,” Dick points out. He flashes Roy a quick grin. “Who else would we want to get drunk off alcoholic Jell-O with?”

“Are you feeling the love?” Wally asks with false sincerity. Roy rolls his eyes, but secretly he kind of is.

\--

Eventually, Roy knew, they were going to get caught. He guesses he’s a little lucky that it’s Ollie who finally does it.

It’s late – Wally and Dick are using their usual cover of “I’m staying at Dick’s/I’m staying at Wally’s” – and they’re watching some awful made for TV movie, because Dick insists that the Lifetime channel isn’t as bad as it seems. He’s either lying or Roy has to start reevaluating their friendship, because it is completely, unequivocally horrible.

Somehow they’ve all ended up piled onto Roy’s crappy sofa – Wally is hanging half off the end and Dick, with his usual gymnast’s grace, is lying mostly over Roy and half upside down. He’s on his third drink, and the glass is perfectly balanced on his stomach. There’s no alcohol in this one; Roy had made the executive decision to cut him off when he insisted on five little umbrellas, under the logic that “more umbrellas will make it taste even better.”

The heroine is wailing about something to do with her wedding – and honestly, Roy doesn’t know why she’s marrying the jerk in the first place, not when her best friend’s always been there for her when she needs him – when the front door slams. Roy jumps, Wally falls off the couch, and Dick somehow manages to rescue his drink. Roy shoves him into a sitting position.

They all sit there, frozen, listening to the footsteps echo down the hall. Belatedly, Roy realizes that Wally could’ve used his speed to get himself and Dick into the hall closet, but it’s too late.

“There you are!” Ollie exclaims, poking his head to the doorway. His eyes sweep over all of them and one eyebrow lifts jauntily. “There… all three of you are.”

Roy is aware that he should say something in this situation, but he completely blanks. He opens his mouth and no words come out. Ollie’s eyes travel from the coffee table, where Roy and Wally’s small collection of empty bottles is heaped, to the cup in Dick’s hands. He makes a soft noise, raising one hand to stroke his beard contemplatively.

“What do you want, Ollie?” Roy finally says, like he doesn’t have a pair of tipsy teenage superheroes in his living room.

“I came to get my singing fish,” Ollie says, completely serious. Roy wants to live in his world, where it’s apparently totally normal to barge into your former sidekick’s apartment at eleven at night, demanding fish. “I want to show it to Dinah.”

“Singing fish?” Dick says.

“Dinah doesn’t want to see the singing fish,” Roy says.

“Hal wants to see the fish,” Ollie says. Dick starts to snicker into his glass.

“No one wants to see the singing fish,” Roy says with a sideways glare at Dick.

“I want to see the singing fish,” Wally says, raising a hand. Ollie beams. Roy gets to his feet.

“C’mon, I think it’s in the closet,” he says to Ollie. To Wally and Dick, he adds, as sternly as he can, “Stay _here_.”

Wally gives him a mock salute. Dick muffles his laughter in the sleeve of his shirt. Roy gets the feeling he isn’t being taken very seriously.

In the hallway, Ollie pins him with a look.

“Having a party?” he asks. Roy crosses his arms and glares.

“Shut it,” he says. He yanks the closet open and drops to his knees; he’s pretty sure he deliberately buried the fish in the back of the closet, behind his gear. “It’s not like that.”

Ollie holds up his hands.

“Alright, alright. Better they drink with you than alone,” he says. There’s a pause; Roy feels his back stiffen. “… Are you being responsible?”

“Wally sobers up fast,” Roy says with a resigned grumble. “Dick’s been drinking coke for the last half hour.”

“Fair enough, but I asked about you,” Ollie says. Roy tosses him an annoyed glance. Ollie looks like he’s had a few himself, what with the soppy smile on his face. “You know, you’ll always be Speedy to me.”

The fact that Roy’s hand is mere inches from his bow does nothing to lessen his urge to shoot Ollie in the foot. Finally, he finds the fish, hidden beneath his jacket and boots. He holds it out to Ollie.

“There’s your fish, there’s the door,” he says. “Go, annoy people.”

“Remember to drink responsibly!” Ollie tells him, tucking the fish under his arm. He leans back into the living room. “That goes double for you two!”

“Don’t breathe a word about this,” Roy says, pointing squarely at Ollie. Ollie gives him his patented _who, me?_ look.

“Hey, I was young once too, you know,” he says, winking. Roy groans and drops his face into his hands.

“Please,” he says. “Just go.”

“I’ll give Dinah your love!” Ollie calls.

“Tell her I hope she kicks you out this time!” Roy replies as the door slams shut. He gets up and does up all his locks before he heads back into the living room. Dick and Wally have completely abandoned the movie in favor of staring at him.

“What?” he bites out.

“Nothing, man,” Wally says, shrugging. “It’s just that Arrow Family Drama is way better than this movie.”

\--

The time with the terrorists in the helicopter is a complete disaster. It is also, Roy feels the need to note, not exactly their fault. The problem with the hero business is that there aren’t set hours – the city is as likely to need saving at three in the morning as it is at noon. There’s an unspoken rule, too, that goes something to the effect of _all heroes within running and/or flying distance will respond immediately._

It’s not the kind of rule you can break.

He grabs Wally by the back of his costume before they can be seen, pulling him down an alley. Wally breaks away and throws up by the nearest trashcan. Dick joins them a minute later. His cape is singed.

“I just want to note,” he says, holding up a finger. “That could have gone equally bad even if I _wasn’t_ hungover.”

“I’m sure they’ll be able to fix that Sears in no time,” Wally says, his voice wavering. Dick digs around in his utility belt and pulls out a handkerchief.

Roy sighs, and decides to cut them a break – it’s not like he’s not hungover too.

“Let me tell you guys a story,” he says, “about the time I saw Green Arrow take down a robber and his getaway car one-handed.”

“I’m not really seeing the connection,” Wally says.

“He had a Tiki glass in the other hand,” Roy says.

Later, he adds a rule to the list: _No operating heavy machinery under the influence._

Underneath, Dick writes, _(Unless the fate of the world depends on it)_ , which Roy figures is fair enough.

\--

Three days after Dick’s seventeenth birthday, they end up on the roof. It’s chillier than expected, and none of them are dressed for the cold. They huddle together, passing around a bottle of champagne Roy’s a little afraid was nicked out from under Batman’s nose.

“C’mon, man,” Wally says, elbowing Dick. “You don’t want a real party? We could invite everyone. Gang all together again – well, more or less.”

Dick frowns. He takes a long swig from the bottle. He’s not wearing his sunglasses, and his hair is longer than Roy’s ever seen it before. It curls in his eyes.

It’s an odd night, Roy thinks. It’s supposed to be a celebration, but there’s something a little sad in the air. Something distant. They’ve been getting drunk together less and less lately, the length of time between nights spent on the floor of Roy’s living room increasing. It’s not anybody’s fault – not Dick’s or Wally’s, and not Roy’s. They’re getting older, the business getting harder. These days it seems like there’s a new crime wave every week.

It’s just the way these things go – nothing stays the same forever.

“Parties are rated,” Dick says, and Wally groans.

“Rated?” Roy repeats, snagging the bottle from Dick’s clever fingers. Wally shoots him a look over the top of Dick’s head, dismay written all over his face.

“Don’t,” he says. Dick elbows him in the ribs.

“Rated,” Dick says. “As in, not overrated, not underrated. Just rated.”

“Just be glad you missed out on whelmed,” Wally tells Roy, rolling his eyes. Dick shoots him a look.

“So _not_ , by the way,” he says. Roy passes the bottle back to him.

“So parties are just rated?” Roy says. Dick nods. He looks up at him from underneath his eyelashes.

“Totally rated,” he says. “But this? This is underrated.”

Roy opens his mouth to say he’s not sure about that, but instead he takes a minute to evaluate the situation: him and Dick and Wally in the cold night air. The sky above is dark – they’re not up quite high enough to get a really good view, but if he tilts his head back he can see a few stars. Dick’s pressed up against his side, and occasionally he lays his head against Roy’s shoulder, just for a minute or two. When Wally takes the bottle, Dick slips his fingers underneath Roy’s arm, squirming closer. His hands are freezing and Roy doesn’t even care.

The champagne’s not half-bad, either. Two thirds of the bottle is already gone.

“This is pretty alright,” he agrees.

“You two wanna get a room?” Wally asks, raising an eyebrow.

“You wanna join?” Dick shoots back, grinning. Wally scowls and holds his hand out.

“You can hoard the booze or you can hoard Roy,” he says. “But you can’t have both. That’s just selfish, bro.”

“It’s my birthday,” Dick replies airily. He pulls himself closer to Roy, as if to prove a point, bottle dangling from his free hand. “I can do whatever I want.”

“You know it’s not actually your birthday, right?” Wally says. The only reply Dick gives is a long sip of champagne. He hands the bottle to Roy next, ignoring Wally’s grumbles. Roy takes a swig, wiping his mouth off on the back of his hand. He blinks, and the bottle’s gone.

“Superpowers are cheating,” Dick informs Wally. Wally shrugs, grinning.

“So what’re we going to do for my birthday?” he asks. “Seeing as how I think twice makes a tradition. Close enough, anyway.”

“Tradition?” Roy says. Wally nods.

“Well, we’re getting drunk on Rob’s birthday, or close enough, anyway,” he says. “And we got drunk in celebration of yours. So getting drunk together for our birthdays – that’s our tradition!”

Roy snorts.

“You guys just came for my birthday so I’d give you booze,” he says. It comes out a little more bitter than he intended. Wally and Dick exchange a brief, confused look.

“Dude,” Wally says. He shakes his head, like he can’t believe Roy isn’t seeing what he’s seeing. Dick snickers quietly, and Roy grits his teeth. He’s missing something – there’s a loop, and he’s not in it. He hates feeling like that. He moves to wrench his arm out of Dick’s grip, but Dick’s fingers tighten. He’s got a grip like iron.

“What?” Roy grinds out.

Wally levels him with a look.

“Do you seriously think that?” Wally says. “That we just showed up for the booze?”

Roy shrugs.

“That was the deal, wasn’t it?” he says. “I’m the oldest, I turn twenty-one first, I get the booze…”

“Yeah, but c’mon,” Dick says. He tugs gently on Roy’s arm. “Getting drunk wasn’t the point. We could’ve done that any time.”

Roy snorts. Wally rolls his eyes. He points the champagne bottle at Roy.

“I’ve got superspeed,” he says. “Dick’s some kind of crazy ninja. You think if we wanted to get drunk, we couldn’t have gotten the booze on our own?”

“You were the whole point,” Dick says. “We wanted to get drunk with you.”

Roy hesitates. His teeth are still set on edge, but the hazy, warm feeling in his chest – he’s pretty sure it’s not the champagne. Dick smiles at him, his eyes soft, and that’s all it takes to make Roy’s shoulders slump. Dick squeezes his arm.

“We were waiting for you,” he says. “It wouldn’t be the same otherwise.”

“We did kind of have a promise,” Wally adds, grinning. He holds the bottle out to Roy like a peace offering. Roy takes it and drinks deep. It tastes a little sweeter than it did before.

Then Wally ruins the moment by adding, “For my birthday, we should go to a strip club.”

Dick snorts. Roy chokes on his mouthful of champagne.

“No,” he says after he’s done coughing. “N-O, no.”

“Oh, like you’re so mature,” Wally mutters. Dick snags the bottle back from Roy; it’s almost empty, but he’s pretty sure there’s another one hidden in the backpack Wally brought.

“Happy birthday,” Roy says to Dick. Dick grins against the bottle.

“We’re getting there,” he says.


End file.
